Readings for the 7^th Week in Ordinary Time

Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6

1 Corinthians 1: 1-3

John 1: 29-34

On the first day of the New Year one of the front-page features in the Washington Post was a story entitled “I Should Die the Way I want to Die, Oregon Doctors, Patients Defend Threatened Assisted Suicide Law”.  The proponents of assisted suicide argue that all human beings have a right to die with dignity.  I too believe that all human beings have a right to die with dignity as well as to live with dignity, but I have come to a different conclusion that those who favor assisted suicide.   We do have a dignity as human beings and that human dignity comes from God.   There is nothing dignified about suffering death on a cross. Yet, why is it the crucifix the most prominent sign of our religion?  The crucifix reminds us that every action we do, even the pain filled ones have dignity because they are connected to God.  When Jesus hung on the cross and said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”, He was doing more than setting a good example.  He was bringing dignity to a horrible situation by remembering where he came from and where he was going.  To quote an old song by the Police, “We are spirits in a material world” A life lived in union with God has meaning.  In today’s first reading from Isaiah, Israel becomes a light to the nations by doing what it is supposed to do, serving God.  Do we really mean it when we pray “Here I am Lord I’ve come to do your will?’  John the Baptist was number two and he didn’t try harder.  He found dignity and meaning in his life by realizing God’s will for him and following it.

When I was younger I remember being told to pray for the grace of a happy death.   Now I have to tell you that I, like most young people, never used the words happy and death in the same sentence.  At first look there is nothing dignified about lying in a bed dying but a person of faith brings a dignity and dare I say a beauty to the moment.  To pray with a dying person is a blessing. They are very much aware of where they came from and where they are going and this brings about a great peace. 

About the same time I was preparing this article I received a notice about a new book on spirituality.  The book is entitled My Monastery Is a Minivan: Where the Daily is Divine and the Routine Becomes Prayer by Denise Roy. The title reminds us that every moment, well most moments, can be occasions of grace and spiritual insight. We make promises to God that we will try to find more time to pray or even go on a retreat, but there never seems to be enough time.  There are so many requirements in life.  What God asks of us is that we try our best to find God in the real stuff of our lives. If we are mindful of our divine origins we live our lives differently.  Cleaning up after a sick child or answering an emergency room page at 3 AM is what we do in our lives.  If God is present in these events we can be a light to the nations or at least the child or family we meet.  Every endeavor can have sanctity as long as we act as John did and recognize God.  Eliminate God and life becomes just another day of rolling a bolder up a hill and having it roll back down at night.